MechChem Africa July-August 2021

⎪ Hydraulic and pneumatic systems ⎪

filtration solutions,” he tells MechChemAfrica . Moodleycontinues: “Wearealsostrongon oil-based lubrications systems, for lubricating the bearings on the likes of ball mills as well as large electric motors and gearboxes. We have a rental fleet of oil reconditioning units that can clean lubricating oil and remove contaminants, water and varnish, thereby increasing the life expectancy of the fluid and preventing premature failure of components. Customers can use these units on a needs basis, without having to purchase a unit for themselves,” he says, adding that interest in this offering has grown significantly, opening up opportunities for HYDAC to showcase its broader hydraulics offering. Turning attention back to the turnkey hydraulics offering, Beveridge says that business is broadly divided into product sales and project sales, with project sales being responsible for working with the customer engineering teams. “Our project teams work with OEMs, EPCMs or end-user engineering teams to develop hydraulic systems to best meet application specifications for industries such as the marine, mining, power genera- tion, water treatment, cement, steel, fishing, agriculture and the defence industries, along withmanymore. “Systemsales is a foundation for our aftersales markets, so we strive to develop high-end, durable systems that we can put into the field to generate a preferred market for our filtration, replacement com - ponents and other service related products,” Beveridge explains. HYDAChas several engineers responsible for designing and developing these systems. “And all of our sales people are highly techni - cal, too, because every one of our products needs to solve a customer’s problem, so the technical fit must be right, even for a basic hydraulic component. We strongly believe in upskilling our team’s product knowledge so we can assist our customers with solutions,” he assures. HYDAC is also “pushing hard” to expand theuseof connected components that enable a system’s state-of-health to be monitored continuously and remotely. “Preventative maintenance is becoming increasingly im- portant and, for this, sensors need to be installed to monitor system performance and condition; data needs to be collected and stored; and that data then needs to be rou- tinely analysed. We are now including these IOT-type innovations into the hydraulics and lubrication systems we develop,” continues Moodley. “By monitoring fluid cleanliness and pres - sure spikes, for example, we can identify useful information about remaining life ex- pectancyof a critical component. This enables us to intervene to protect the equipment before it fails,” he notes. “We focus on the

A view of HYDAC’s Johannesburg workshop where engineered systems are assembled and tested before shipping to sites across Southern Africa and the SADC region.

Through Basic Hydraulics, HYDAC has created a local centre of excellence for hydraulic deck equipment, cooling and propulsion systems for the marine industry.

technologies that enable data to be uploaded to a local server or to the cloud, from where it can be analysed and displayed on a dash- board anywhere in the world. This enables technicians to have a very accurate idea of the repairs or changes necessary to restore a system to health before travelling to a site,” Moodley explains. “COVIDhas put this need into sharp focus. Lead times are now longer and travel more restricted, so information about exactlywhat isneededandwhat has tobedoneona remote sitebecomes very important,” addsBeveridge. He says that HYDAC is very strong on modern sensor technology and the bus sys- tems that enable themtocommunicatewith local and cloud based networks.

the inhouse capacity to deliver on projects from small to very large and we intend to use this capacity to extend our reach in the Southern African region as far and as wide as possible,” Beveridge concludes. q

HYDAC has a strong presence in the diesel filtration market, which is supported by in-house expertise and advanced fluid conditioning solutions.

“Systems engineering is one of our particular strengths and we have a lot to offer those needing integrated systems for sophisticated, robust and highly cost-ef- fective applications. “With a broad range of hydraulic and electronic prod- ucts and components to choose from, we are well positioned as a provider of turnkey solutions and systems for almost any industrial application. We have

July-August 2021 • MechChem Africa ¦ 21